Around the time Antonio Margheriti was engaged in the unholy work of
wedding the Vietnam War film with the cannibal genre in Cannibal
Apocalypse (1980) and splicing the best bits of Apocalypse Now (1979)
and The Deer Hunter (1978) into his blood soaked,
shot-in-the-Philippines actioner The Last Hunter(1981), Thai
filmmakers were also busy making their own demented backyard redux of
Coppola's bloated paean to man's inhumanity. And oh, the inhumanity!

The film signposts its intentions early, through the overhead ceiling
fan denoting "instant Vietnam flashback". Our hero -
Namchoke? Prompit? Let's call him Wilson - has returned from a tour
of duty and almost immediately is cajoled by his former commander to
accept a mercenary job deep in the Vietnam jungle. It's not clear if
the Vietnam War has ended, and even more unclear what a Sergeant in
the Thai Army was doing there in the first place; nevertheless he
needs the money for his daughter's polio operation and, since his
wife was killed (cue blood-streaked flashback), they're both
dependent on each other. So much for the sentiment. Onward, Buddhist
Soldiers.

Wilson hits the Vietnam jungle running with a Mercenary squad under
his command, a group of ugly Thai misfits with more than their share
of chips on their shoulder. It's a treacherous trip up the figurative
river, with the ever-present Viet Cong and their bamboo spiked traps
executed in graphic, close-to-the-bone style, yet their most
dangerous enemy, it's soon apparent amidst the spiralling paranoia,
is themselves. After slashing and mutilating their way through a VC
village they stumble on a pregnant Thai woman begging for their
protection. With a cold, mean glare and a radio up her skirt, it
seems she's leading them into an ambush, and succeeds with surprising
ease in turning the men against each other. One private had riddled
his wife and her lover with bullets, and thus wants to save the girl;
another private, a relentless would-be-rapist, has his way with her -
only to find his cock almost severed. Exit pregnant Thai in a hail of
Wilson's pistol fire, and they carry off their mutilated buddy.
Miraculously, he's cured twenty minutes later into the film, only to
try the old "involuntary surprise sex" routine once more.

Wilson finally reaches his jungle contact, a glamorous commando named
Choompah, but not before the rest of the squad are captured by
Choompah's men, staked to the ground, and urinated on while her 2IC,
an almost hairless, toothless and practically eyeless circus freak
with a frotting fetish, rubs himself against one of his piss-stained
victims. His disturbing bubble-head looked familiar; the actor turns
out to be famous comedian Santhong Sisai - which translates to "ugly
as sin"! - who was also a country singer and jailed in the
Seventies for attempted murder. Which certainly didn't hurt his
career, before his untimely death in a car accident around 1982. It's
not the first pissing scene, either - but in a Thai film that throws
in kung fu, cannibalism, outrageous gore and every conceivable 'Nam
and post-'Nam cliches while making up a few of their own, a few
bubble-headed toilet antics certainly aren't out of place.

Choompah fills in Wilson's remaining squad on their mission: to bring
down a crazed VC Colonel (and it's at this moment when the Heart Of
Darkness references tear though the grass roof) operating a drug
empire - known as The Empire - out of a fortified camp guarded by
flesh-eating aborigines - known as The Draculas! Once Wilson's men
are captured, the film kicks into top gear and its previous scenes of
graphic mutilation and dismemberment are washed away in a river of
gore. There's maggot licking, eyeball squishing, a knife through
skull followed by a regulation cannibal chow-down on its contents,
and seemingly endless rounds of ammunition tearing through flesh and
bone: It's the ending you secretly dreamed of for Apocalypse Now,
delivered by the trailer-load, yet somehow redeemed by its main
offender's daughter wrapping her arms around him and gushing, "I
wuv you daddy!" Awwww....

In addition to the Thai original and export versions, there's a THIRD
titled Jungle Killers, edited by Hong Kong producer-hack Thomas Tang
with much of the gore trimmed, but with the added bonus of three
Euro-Trash actors slashing their way though an entirely different
jungle looking for treasure. Looking for the Temple of Doom, perhaps?
Move on, assholes. Make no mistake, Tang's Mercenary is to be avoided
like the Plague, in favour of its longer, infinitely more excessive
version. And yet, at over 1 hour 40 minutes, Mercenary is a fat-free
exercise in cinematic brutality - a simpleminded one but not without
its own dumb, animalistic, bludgeon-carrying charms. Its camera
flourishes and manic montage leave little time between grotesque
set-pieces, thus allowing little time to contemplate just how
primitive the soundtrack is. And I'm not just talking dialogue, with
those regulation Hong Kong dubbing-booth Brits trying American
accents and exaggerated Orientals (and Choompah's real voice replaced
by Pam Ayres'). Even the foley and atmos tracks are poorly stitched,
and the music a hodgepodge of library music and Goblin's Euro-score
for Dawn Of The Dead (1978). No, we forgive its shortcomings because
of the film's sheer onslaught of mind-bending imagery. The mud-daubed
ghouls in denim, the Deer Hunter atrocities punted into Cannibal
Holocaust (1978) territory, and above all, the blinking, puckering,
rubbing form of Santhong Sisai frotting his way into our hearts and
minds.

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HERR LEAVOLD

Andrew Leavold owned and managed Trash Video, the largest cult video rental store in Australia, from 1995 to 2010. He is also a film-maker, published author, researcher, film festival curator, musician, and above all, unrepentant and voracious fan of the pulpier aspects of genre cinema. His writing has been published globally in mainstream magazines, academic journals and underground cinema fanzines, for the last two decades.

Leavold toured the world with his feature length documentary The Search For Weng Weng (2013). His ten years of research on genre filmmaking in the Philippines formed the basis of Mark Hartley's documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! (released internationally in 2010), on which Leavold is also Associate Producer, and he has since been recognized both in the Philippines and abroad as the foremost authority in his area of expertise, teaching Philippine film history at university level in Australia, the United States, and throughout the Philippines. Leavold teamed with Daniel Palisa to co-direct The Last Pinoy Action King (2015), both a feature-length documentary on the late Filipino action idol Rudy Fernandez, and a dissection of film royalty, politics, privilege, idolatry, and the Philippines’ pyramid of power.

He is currently shooting two new feature-length documentaries – The Most Beautiful Creatures On The Skin Of The Earth (also with Palisa), the third in his Filipino trilogy, about erotic cinema under Marcos; and Pub, a history of the vibrant St Kilda music scene as told through its most outrageous progeny, Fred Negro. Both films are due for release in 2018.